Program Called Feasible in New York

Published: March 3, 1989

Correction Appended

Administrators of drug abuse programs in New York said yesterday that if a proposed liberalization of rules on the use of methadone was adopted, all of New York City's approximately 200,000 heroin addicts could be receiving daily doses of the synthetic narcotic in a matter of weeks.

''We can potentially treat everyone,'' said Arthur Zenko, administrator of Beth Israel Medical Center's Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program, which operates 23 methadone clinics treating 8,000 addicts. ''All we need is the money.'' He estimated, however, that it would cost approximately $360 million, or $18,000 an addict, to provide methadone on a daily basis to all heroin addicts in the city.

Because methadone requires no refrigeration and is taken orally, its storage and use are uncomplicated, Dr. Zenko said.

About 25,000 of the city's 200,000 heroin addicts and about 10,000 of the 50,000 addicts in the rest of the state are enrolled in methadone treatment programs, said Charles LaPorte, Deputy Commisssioner of New York State's Division of Substance Abuse Services, and there are about 1,000 people on waiting lists to enter a program. Almost half the opiate-addicted population in the nation live in New York State. Clinic Is Viewed as Model Currently all but one of the 119 methadone treatment centers in the state are required to provide counseling and therapy to all patients receiving methadone. The exception is Beth Israel's Interim Methadone Clinic, on 125th Street at Park Avenue, where there is no regular counseling, fewer doctors and nurses and an abbreviated staff for its 150 patients.

According to officials at Beth Israel, the interim clinic, which was started in 1987 as a 18-month experiment supported by the Federal Government, is the model that inspired this week's F.D.A. proposal.

''As many as 50 percent of those taking methadone are stable enough, people with jobs and good incomes, that they don't need all the support services,'' Dr. Zenko said. Ira J. Marion, Associate Executive Director of the Divison of Substance Abuse at Albert Einstein Medical College in the Bronx, which runs eight methadone treatment centers serving 2,800 addicts, said the program might have ''a major impact in the AIDS area.'' All but about 5 percent of heroin addicts take the drug intravenously, he said, and the AIDS virus can spread on contaminated needles.

The proposal, however, was labeled irresponsible by some New York treatment center officials. ''Any relaxation of counseling and treatment is the worst possible thing that could happen,'' said Dr. Beny Primm, executive director of the Brooklyn-based Addiction Research and Treatment Corporation, which treats 2,030 methadone patients. He added that without comprehensive support services most patients would never be able to return to living normal lives.

Correction: March 4, 1989, Saturday, Late City Final Edition An article yesterday about possible New York City effects of a proposal to widen access to methadone misstated the annual cost of treating a heroin addict with the synthetic drug. It is $1,800, not $18,000.